KANTIAN ETHICS

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 Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
• Born, spent his whole life & died in Konigsberg in East Prussia.His most important
works were: Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Groundwork of the Metaphysics of
Morals (1785), Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Critique of Judgement (1790),
Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793), The Metaphysics of Morals (1797).
• Kant stands as part of the European Enlightenment, the attempt to get beyond
authority & superstition & deal with the world on the basis of human reason.
• It had been assumed that sense experience conformed to external reality, but Kant
argued that we experience the world as we do simply because that is the way our
senses function.
• We do not know things as they are in themselves, but only as they appear to us.
• The religious implications of his views were controversial. Following the publication of
Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, he was forbidden by the university to write
any more on matters of religion.

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 Keywords/phrases
• a posteriori - used of an argument based on
sense experience
• a priori - used of an argument that arises
prior to sense experience
• Categorical imperative - a moral ‘ought’ that
does not depend on results
• Hypothetical imperative - something you
need to do if you are to achieve a desired
result
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 Key Issue I

For Kant, the key issue is how to

discover a rational basis for one’s
sense of duty, & from that devise a
principle by which one could
distinguish between right & wrong

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 Key Issue II
How do we solve moral problems?

For Kant, the answer to this question is that

we use reason. Human beings, according
to Kant, are rational & can work out what
is right & what is wrong.

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 Kant’s thinking:-
• Kant saw clearly that, where empirical evidence
was concerned, there could be no certainty.
• He also realised that one could never argue
logically from an ‘is’ to an ‘ought’, for facts show
what is, not what ought to be.
• He therefore wanted to find a new starting point
for morality, one that was not dependent on
anything as ambiguous as evidence.
• He found it in the idea of a ‘good will’.

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“There is no possibility of thinking of anything at all in the
world…which can be regarded as good without
qualification, except a good will. Intelligence, wit,
judgement, & whatever talents of the mind one might
want to name are doubtless in many respects good &
desirable, as are such qualities as temperance, courage,
resolution, perseverance. But they can become
extremely bad & harmful if the will…is not good….a good
will seems to constitute the indispensable condition of
being even worthy of happiness”.

(Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals 1785)

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 Kant’s agenda;
• To place the ‘good will’ at the very centre of
ethics.
• In many ways, Kant represents a turning point in
ethics.
• After his work it became impossible to ignore the
active role of the person who behaves morally.
• Morality is not to be found in evidence we can
analyse, nor in results we may try to predict, but
only in the exercise of freedom & good will in an
action.
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 Connection I
• Kant follows Aristotle in seeing virtue as a human
excellence.
• In choosing to act morally, one is exercising an inner
freedom in following a sense of one’s purpose & destiny, &
expressing one’s will & virtues in an exercise of pure
practical reason.
• Kant saw the development of virtues as its own reward,
and ethics - action springing from the pure practical reason
- as the sole means of bringing this about.
• The intention of Kant’s morality is to set aside all
egocentricity, & move towards an unconditional & universal
sympathy.
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 Connection II
• In looking at the moral argument for the existence of God
we know that, for Kant, God was one of the postulates of
the practical reason.
• In other words, it is one of the things that makes sense
of the experience of acknowledging a moral obligation &
responding to it.
• However, Kant’s ‘Categorical Imperative’ can stand on
its own as an ethical theory, & does not depend on God
as a postulate.
• It is important to keep these 2 aspects of Kant’s
philosophy separate; but also to recognise that the
experience of morality lies at the heart of both the
argument for the existence of God & Kant’s moral theory.

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 However;
• It had earlier been assumed that ‘good’ could be
defined with reference to the world, & therefore it
was something to be discovered & explored, & in
line with which one should direct one’s action.
• This is certainly the case, for example, with
Aquinas’ view of Natural Law. It is good for
everything to follow its natural purpose & end -
doing so constitutes its ‘good’.
• But for Kant, ‘good’ is related to the will, not in a
set of values to be found in the world.
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 The summum bonum

• Kant sees the summum bonum (the ‘highest good’)

as the joining of virtue & happiness.

• But it is virtue, in doing one’s duty, that comes first;

happiness is always a bonus that may be added, &
it cannot be guaranteed.

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 For Kant:
The highest form of morality is to do one’s
duty against one’s inclinations.

He sets out 3 propositions that fix the

boundaries of morality:
1 Your action is moral only if you act from a sense of
duty.
2 Your action is moral only if you act on the basis of a
principle, or maxim.
3 It is your duty to act out of reverence for the moral
law.
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 Kant argued that, in obeying a moral
command, we are accepting 3 things:-
1 Freedom: because I experience myself as having a free
choice.
2 God: because if I feel obliged to do something, I must
have a sense that the world is designed in such a way
that doing the right thing will eventually lead to
happiness. In a godless world, nothing would matter.
3 Immortality: because I may not be able to achieve the
good I seek in following this moral obligation in the
course of this lifetime. On the other hand, if I still go
ahead & do it, it shows that I am in some way looking
beyond this life.

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 To Kant:
• One should act as if there were a God, even if God
cannot be proved. One acts to fulfil one’s own moral
imperative as though God had commanded it, without
attachment to the results of the action.
• The key feature to notice here is that acting morally has
become an end in itself.
• If a person believes in God, behaving morally could be
seen as a way to achieve happiness by gaining His
approval.
• However, Kant wants moral development to be free from
all considerations of consequences.

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 Let go of the ego..
..and thereby drop the distinction between the
self & the world.
________________________________
What if I act in a way that is based on pure
practical reason, not looking at the possible
results of my action?

I would be spontaneous, acting solely on the

basis of my will, & I would therefore be free.
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The categorical & hypothetical
imperatives.
Categorical Imperative Hypothetical Imperative
Tells you that you Tells you what you should
do in order to achieve a
should do something,
given result. All
without any reference hypothetical imperatives
to the likely result come in the form of an
(e.g. ‘you should ‘if…then’ statement.
always tell the truth).

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 The categorical imperative
comes in 3 forms:-
1 ‘So act that the maxim of your will could always
hold at the same time as a principle establishing
universal law’.

This form of the CI therefore provides a simple, logical test.

If you are content that everyone else should be bound by the
same principle upon which you are acting, then what you are
doing is logically consistent & therefore right.
If, on the other hand, what you want to do would involve a
contradiction, or be self-defeating, if everyone followed that
same maxim, then it is wrong.

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2 This formulation concerns the treatment of
other people. ‘Act in such a way that you
always treat humanity, whether in your own
person, or in the person of any other, never
simply as a means, but always at the same
time as an end’.
Note that Kant’s morality is a priori (see slide 3). It is established quite
apart from a consideration of possible results.
Kant firmly believed that a person experienced his or her own worth
primarily when acting in this way, based on a priori reason, & not
simply responding to sense experience.
His moral vision here is that a person should set aside all
considerations of personal gain & have a genuinely universal
sympathy. By doing so, one achieves what is highest in human nature.
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3 The 3rd form of the CI highlights Kant’s view that it
is human reason that determines morality:
‘Act as if [you are] a legislating member in the
universal kingdom of ends’.

By the ‘kingdom of ends’, Kant means the society of

rational beings, each of whom are to be treated as
‘ends’ rather than as ‘means’.
We are to be members in such a kingdom & also its
legislators. As free, autonomous, rational, moral
agents, we do not discover morality - we make it.

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 Kant & the real world
• A challenge to Kantian ethics came from a journal article
in 1986 by Christine Korsgaard. In which she points out
that obeying the moral law puts a person at a
disadvantage when dealing with people who are wicked.
• If I treat people as free moral agents, rather than trying
to restrain them when they are doing something wrong,
then I am effectively colluding with them in their
behaviour.
• The same thing happens with the 3rd formulation –
legislating for a kingdom of ends. This represents an
ideal situation, & not a practical one.
• In the real world people do not always choose to follow
what pure practical reason requires.

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 However:-
• The 1st formulation – that one should act in such
a way that the maxim of one’s actions could
become a universal law – it is possible to justify,
for example restraining someone from doing
harm to another.
• This is because it is perfectly reasonable to work
universally with the maxim ‘Whenever I see
someone about to harm another, I will restrain
him or her’ without contradiction.

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• Working with an ideal situation, rather than with
the messy contradictions of human beings creates
some problems for Kantian theorists.
• Because in practice, people do know their
situation, and may be inclined toward self-interest,
rather than the overall benefit of society.
• The problem of the ‘kingdom of ends’ is always
that there will be some people who see everyone
else as a means to their own personal end – with
chaotic results if they are not in some way
restrained.

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Summary of Kantian deontology
1) It is very straightforward & based on reason.
Therefore it conforms to what most people think
of as morality.
2) It gives criteria by which to assess universal
principles of morality.
3) It makes clear that morality is a matter of doing
one’s duty, not following one’s inclinations.
4) It is rational & certain, & does not depend on
results or happiness.

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 Connection I
5. Kant wanted reason to prevail over the
ambiguities of inclination & experience. He
therefore sought a moral principle that would
be universally applicable, based on the pure
practical reason exercised through our rational
will.
6. He saw morality as involved only with those
situations where a person acts out of a sense
of duty. To do something good simply because
you enjoy doing it is not in itself moral. Morality
is always a matter of conscious choice.
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 Connection II
7. He was concerned with duty for its own sake,
irrespective of the results of carrying it out.
8. To Kant, morality is outside the realm of
nature. The good will is concerned with duty
for duty’s sake - & that cannot be supported by
facts about the world, only by our own
experience of a moral challenge.
9. To Kant, autonomy is crucial. The principles of
my action come from my practical reason
alone; they are not imposed on me from
outside.
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 However:-
1. Its abstract & general principles may
seem far removed from the immediacy of
moral situations.
2. General principles do not always help
where there are choices to be made
between options, each of which could be
justified.
3. Motives are seldom pure, people seldom
act from the pure practical reason.
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4. Most people do want to take the result of their
actions into account, & may feel guilty if harm
comes as a result of their good intentions.
5. There is a certain arrogance about the view
that one should stick to one’s universal moral
principles no matter what the circumstances.
There may be occasions when it would be right
to tell a lie – one might achieve a greater good
than by conforming to a principle of truth-
telling. So perhaps the categorical imperative
is too general.
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 A key point:
• Kant begins with the experience of moral obligation.

• But what if people do not feel challenged in this way?

• What if they claim that they never feel they ought to do

anything that they do not actually want to do?

• It is difficult to see how Kant’s approach could ever

persuade someone to act morally.

• If they already want to do the right thing, Kant’s categorical

imperative can be used as a guide, but if they do not, Kant
would appear to have nothing to offer.
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 A contrast with Utilitarianism
• For Utilitarianism, you start with ‘the good’ (e.g.
happiness or benefit), & something is judged ‘right’ if it
brings about & maximises that good (e.g. ‘the greatest
good for the greatest number).
• For Kant, you decide – on grounds of pure practical
reason – what is right & your duty; & you should follow
this irrespective of your inclinations or the results that
your action may have.
• For Utilitarians, the starting point is the welfare &
happiness of all; for Kant, it is the recognition of
everyone as a free, autonomous moral agent, to be
treated as an end & never simply as a means.

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 Kant & democracy

Kant’s moral theory depends, as we have

seen, on a kingdom of free, autonomous
human beings, each an ‘end’, each
responsible for legislating universally.
This was a democratic ideal, from a
period that saw both the French and
American revolutions.

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 And finally,
• It is difficult to over-emphasise the importance of Kant for the
whole development of ethics from his day through to the 21st
century.
• With Kant, the human reason and will stand supreme. Man
takes his rational stand & no longer looks outside himself for
external guarantors of moral rectitude.
• It is a short step from this point to start to see the whole of moral
value as something that is to be created by the human will &
imposed on the natural world, or even a philosophy in which
human meaning & purpose plays the central role.
• From Nietzsche and later, existentialism, we are examining
philosophical ideas that draw on Kant’s contribution.
• Since Kant, all values are seen as generated by man, not
encountered by him.

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 Exercises for you:-
1) Explain the difference between a
hypothetical & categorical imperative. Do
you think that the categorical imperative, as
presented by Kant, provides a sufficient
guide to what is right & wrong?
2) What, for Kant, was an obligation?
3) Why did Kant believe that humans are
autonomous?

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 Response to Q1

1) Here it is important to include the 1st 2

formulations of the CE: that one must be able
to will that the maxim of one’s action shall
become a universal law, & also that people
should be treated as ends & never as means.
Together, they do provide a very general,
rational framework fro assessing moral issues
– but is such a rational framework enough to
help solve the issues in practical ethics? That
is a crucial issue here, & practical examples
will help to bring it out.
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 Response to Q2

• An obligation is a task that ought to be

accomplished for no other reason than
that it is the right thing to do; Kant called
these categorical imperatives – actions
which are performed out of duty & for
their own sake.

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 Response to Q3

• Kant believed that Humans are

autonomous because they can make
moral decisions prior to experience,
using reason (a priori) & without having
such decisions imposed on them by
others.

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